Monday, 25 September 2017

Weight is just a number

A few years back now I decided that I was going to shake my lifestyle up, regular readers will know that I went on to lose 2 stone. Guess what guys? I pretty much put it all back on, but not in the way you might imagine.

As it turns out a healthy lifestyle is not all about what you weigh, and boy has it taken me a very long time to try and get my head around that. In the past I have restricted calories and denied myself treats because I was so riled up about what that damn scale said. In doing all of the above my weight did plummet, and at that time I did not see it as a problem, in actual fact I saw this as success.

As my weight went down, all of my clothes became baggier and baggier until the day came that I simply had to get rid of the vast majority of my wardrobe in favour of going out and purchasing everything in my new smaller size. There were items that I kept, mainly dresses because they had cost me so much to purchase in the first place and annoyingly had only been worn once or twice, I didn't ever expect to actually fit into them again, but you know sometimes you keep these things just in case.

Over the last 8 months I have addressed how much I am eating and have almost doubled my calorie intake, I started lifting weights and watched as my lower body started to transition. My jeans started to get to tight, my new smaller wardrobe was not fitting quite so snuggly anymore. I remember a point in April on a weekend away in London that I got quite irate with myself, I had brought away two of my favourite dresses and they were just not fitting like they used to, one wouldn't even do up. I threw my shoes across the room in sheer frustration and had to make do with the other dress that I was quite simply not happy with.

In recent months I have had to go back through my wardrobe, give away a whole load of items that I quite honestly don't know how I ever fit into now, and also go out and replace jeans, leggings and dresses, although it has been rather nice getting to purchase some gorgeous new outfits (I have been loving the luxury women's wear at David Nieper)

Looking back it was just my body starting to change, but as I was still getting my head around how putting weight back on did not mean that I was going to revert back to old ways, and that it wasn't going to undo all of the hard work that I had put in over the last couple of years.

This is a highlight of my starting point back in 2014, my 2 stone weight loss in the summer of 2015 and finally me today, There isn't a huge weight difference between my starting point and today, but there is a rather noticeable difference in my body composition, and there is a far cry between the skinny minnie in the middle and the girl who eats all the food on the right.

I have gone from eating a very rubbish diet combined with absolutely no exercise, to someone who was obsessing over every little detail, to finally reaching a point where I am all about balance. It's taken me a long old time to reach this point, and it hasn't always been an easy path to follow. When I decided that I wanted to started building up my lower body which of course meant eating in a calorie surplus, I questioned myself near enough every day as to whether I was doing the right thing. I got angry and frustrated when my clothes started to get to small, but now when I look between these last two photos, I can see exactly why I had to replace all my jeans!

I had literally no bum!

We have weight drummed into us during every waking hour, but the reality really is that health and happiness does not lie in what we weigh. Health and happiness is when we are comfortable in our own skin, when we can make well balanced choices as to what we put in our bodies but equally so that we are not under eating and not restricting treats that we want to eat.

I have learned this the absolute hard way, and I hear from girls all the time who are scared to start eating in a calorie surplus, which believe me I hands down get. I have been there. I find myself saying it all the time, but we cannot base our progress on the scale, it is merely a statistic and it cannot measure anything. You might weigh exactly the same, but you may lose inches and notice a change in your progress photos even if your weight doesn't budge.